Dedicated places Groam House Museum, Rosemarkie
An occasional series on small local museums dedicated to one artist, group or subject. By Huon Mallalieu
DNA spinners tell us that about 10% of Scots have patrilineal links to the Picts, which perhaps means that those mysterious inhabitants of northern Britain were more than a shifting confederation of tribes and had a genetic identity that distinguished them from other Celts, Gaels, Scots, Britons, Romans, Angles, Saxons and Vikings, with whom they fought and eventually intermingled. Similarly, in their arts, some motifs and skills were their own and others were shared with some or other of their neighbours.
So little is known of the Picts because, other than inscriptions on their stones and occasionally jewels, their written records amount to little more than a list of kings— many of whom bore names that persist among Scots. At times, they were overlords of much of Scotland and Northumbria, but their heartlands were in the far North and North-east and it’s there that more than 200 carved stones have survived.
The place to learn about them and to see 15 fine local examples is the Groam House Museum at Rosemarkie on the east coast of the Black Isle in Ross-shire. Most date from the 8th and 9th centuries, when the village was an important early Christian ecclesiastical centre with seaborne trade links to the east and south.
Some may always have been floor slabs or outdoor standing stones; others became so, but would originally have been panels and lids of tombs, altar frontals or reredoses. It is also likely that, just as medieval cathedrals were highly coloured within and without, so these bare carvings would have been painted, gilded and adorned with jewels, pearls and semi-precious stones.
The centrepiece of the display on the single-room ground floor is the Rosemarkie cross-slab, carved mostly with typical Pictish symbols, such as a mirror and comb, double discs, hybrid animals and interlace patterns, but also with one or two that are unique to the Rosemarkie sculptor, such as double-bodied snakes.
Other Pictish artefacts on display include a reconstruction of a harp, which can be played, a conjectural representation of the monastic settlement of Rosemarkie, wall hangings and a complete photographic record of Pictish stones.
Upstairs is a room devoted to George Bain (1881–1968), the driving force behind the wider dissemination of Celtic art in crafts after its rediscovery in the 19th century, who studied Pictish techniques and published Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction (1951), which did much to boost interest in the subject. Some of his paintings of Scotland, Greece and the Balkans are among the displays given by his family soon after the museum was founded in 1980, a gift to which other examples of his work and designs have since been added. There are also videos and a place for children to take rubbings from replica stones.
Groam House is an independent museum and entry is free, so it relies on donations and volunteers. Open April 1 to October 31, weekdays 11am to 4.30pm, Saturdays and Sundays 2pm to 4.30pm (www.groamhouse.org.uk)